Shakespeare's Women in Drag: Portia

It is very difficult for a modern audience to see the Merchant of Venice as the Elizabethans did. We see this as a play about Shylock. And in fact, Shylock is without question the most powerful role in the play, and in fact one of Shakespeare's most compelling characters. Like Falstaff in Henry IV, this is a case where Shakespeare let himself get obsessively interested in what was intended to be a minor character (Shylock in fact appears in only five scenes and has only 360 lines in the play and in Shakespeare's source story was nothing but a cartoon villain) and let that character steal the play. But what it makes it worse for us is that the main substance of the play, all the stuff about ships and commerce, seems devoid of interest, whereas for Shakespeare's audience, made up in large part of merchants and other small businessmen, it was of very real interest. (I am indebted to Martin Holmes's book Shakespeare's Public for this insight.) It is especially difficult for us to come to terms with the character of Portia, because we tend to forget her real story and think of her as someone whose whole function in the play is to appear in the Duke's chambers disguised as a legal expert. For one thing, the courtroom scene is the only scene in the play where Portia becomes involved with the Shylock story, which today we see as the whole point of the play. Secondly, for this scene Shakespeare has given Portia one of his most famous set speeches, the one beginning, "The quality of mercy is not strained." Sinead Cusak says the following about her experience playing Portia. I finally worked out that the great problem for the actress playing Portia is to reconcile the girl at home in Belmont early in the play with the one who plays a Daniel come to judgement in the Venetian court. I couldn't understand why Shakespeare makes her so unsympathetic in those early scenes --- the spoilt little rich girl dismissing suitor after suitor in a very derisory fashion. The girl who does that, I thought, is

not the woman to deliver the "quality of mercy" speech. I don't want to discuss the way in which Sinead Cusak resolved this problem, except to say that I think it was very different from the way Shakespeare himself intended the play to be performed, and yet at the same time was undoubtedly a very good choice for someone playing to a modern audience. Portia in Disguise There are a number of ways of trying to avoid confronting the apparent inconsistency in Portia's character. We might recall that Portia has borrowed her courtroom garb from her cousin Bellario in Padua, who is in fact a learned legal scholar. And at the end of Act 3 Scene 4, we see that she has also asked Bellario for some notes, which presumably are her guide in the subsequent courtroom scene. One can then try to reconcile the difference between Portia as we earlier saw her and as we see her in the courtroom by arguing that the mercy speech was written for Portia by Bellario and she is merely reading it, and that the same is pretty much true for the rest of her courtroom performance. In my opinion, to accept this explanation is to destroy the dramatic integrity of the play. For one thing, to make the logic of the story depend this sort of explanation, which is not even stated anywhere in the text, is to basically invent a new play which is a substitute for the one that is written down. And if one of the play's leading characters, in the play's climactic scene, is functioning as a mere mouthpiece, speaking the words of a character who never even appears, then the whole play becomes meaningless and certainly Portia's role in the courtroom (i.e. the Duke's chambers) becomes completely meaningless. To understand the play, I think we need to ask the question why does Portia appear in the courtroom disguised as a man? Why not have a true legal expert in the courtroom scene? Or have the Duke himself deliver the arguments that Portia makes?

Well, to have the crucial arguments delivered by the Duke or by some true legal expert would mean that the crucial plot point in the whole play would essentially come from a deus ex machina. In this case, the story would somehow lose its point. And for somewhat the same reason, I think it's essential that the audience recognize from the very first moment that this supposed distinguished doctor of law is in fact Portia. I've seen it suggested that the scene be played in such a way that Portia is not recognizable by the audience, and then the truth as an amusing surprise in Act 5. In my opinion, this just won't work. If we don't see through Portia's disguise, then in Act 4 Antonio's savior is still a deus ex machina. The play loses its power, and it's too late to say in Act 5, "Oh, it was really Portia." In fact, if the audience really didn't know the play and didn't know that the playwright was a god to be worshipped, and if the courtroom scene were won by an unknown character, much of the audience would leave at the end of Act 4 --- there would be nothing to stay for. But moreover, we need to be able to recognize Portia while she gives the Mercy Speech because the Mercy Speech is the defining moment in the play for Portia. It is the moment when we realize that she is noble and courageous (and much more intelligent than anyone else in the courtroom). Portia loses her whole impact in the play if we don't see who she is while she's giving this speech. And we are surprised. We'd taken Portia for a bit of a bubble head, and now we suddenly realize how intelligent she is. (Or if not intelligent, at the very least clever.) More intelligent than she realizes herself, I believe. But why should it be Portia who defeats Shylock? Why not have Bassanio or one of Antonio's other friends, or even Antonio himself, present the crucial legal reasoning? One can see that it wouldn't quite work. Although Portia herself is almost a deus ex machina in the courtroom, since she has not been previously involved in the Shylock plot at all and we

have had no previous reason to even suspect that she had any legal expertise (which to me does seem like a genuine flaw in the plot), I think that there is no other character available who could present the winning arguments in the courtroom without having the story fall flat. Because if Antonio or any of the other characters is capable of coming up with the arguments Portia uses, then basically this says that Shylock simply underestimated his opponents and is not a worthy antagonist. Now let me suggest a thought experiment. Let us suppose that we can ignore the Elizabethan social values and put on a very modern version of the Merchant of Venice, where Portia doesn't bother to disguise herself but is in fact a female law student (or, in fact, a distinguished jurist; why not?) and appears in the courtroom as such. This is actually much more plausible than the way Shakespeare has things. (Of course plausibility seemed to be the very last thing Shakespeare was ever striving for.) Rewriting and performing the play this way would certainly be an interesting experiment. At the very least, one would need a completely new Act 5. But I don't believe the play would really work without Portia being in disguise. And the reason, in my opinion, is that Portia that would then completely overpower the play. As it is, at the end of the play, Antonio and Bassanio remain the heroes of the play. Antonio had been within a few moments of losing his life, and Portia pulled off an incredible feat of legal legerdemain to save him, and now they're all back in Belmont and, astonishingly enough, after having seen Portia's true abilities in the Duke's chambers in Venice, now in Act 5 Antonio and Bassanio and the audience go back to treating her as just another silly dame. A very lovely one, to be sure, and one who Bassanio is quite in love with (although originally he said he only wanted her for her money), but still. Just a woman! The trick with the rings is what brings the play back down from near tragedy (although I will argue that the courtroom scene is also very comic) to almost slapstick. This is the classic pattern for male-female comedies, continued in many modern sitcoms

and movies. Portia, a woman, has managed to save Antonio's life by outsmarting an opponent that he himself was not able to get the better of. This delights the audience. But at the same time, we don't want to end the play with the message that a woman can be smarter than a man. Certainly not if the play is to be a comedy!